Agricultural conveyors move fungible product from one location to another. For example, agricultural conveyors are utilized to move fertilizers such as phosphates or pot ash from a hopper at the bottom of a semi-truck trailer up to an implement for transport or application. Current agricultural conveyors are generally towed into position which greatly limits where the conveyors can be used in any practical way. Other problems with these current agricultural conveyors include manually having to adjust their pitch or height or both relative to the ground to reach the agricultural implement, trailer or loft they are loading to or receiving from. Such manual effort results in lost time and costly labor. Also, because agricultural applications have limited windows where the weather permits applications in the field, such slow processes can result in lost production because the optimal times for application may be based on field/crop maturity, and if applications are not timely, for example, not completed before rains saturate a field, the application window may be lost which results in lost crop.
The time it takes to tow the current conveyors results in lost production time. First the conveyor must be hitched to a tractor or other means of transport, then unhitched once in position. Further, once the conveyors are moved to the desired location, for example, in the field under a semi-trailer hopper, it becomes difficult to maneuver the conveyors into position under the hopper. Such conveyors are towed to station such that their receiving end is transverse to the semi-trailer longitudinal axis. The conveyor is then unhitched. Thereafter, the tractor that has towed the conveyor is moved to the opposite side of the trailer, the conveyor is then re-hitched and pulled under the hopper for receipt of such items as fertilizer. This is a slow laborious process. The ability to move in a forward and reverse direction is extremely limited because often times the chassis with its wheel base cannot operate in fields with deep top soil or wet top soil. Further, their front ends remain on the ground allowing them to be moved on hard pavement, but not in the field. Thus, in practice these conveyors are moved by towing.
Additionally, such conveyors do not allow for the front end of the conveyor to be automatically lifted to an optimum height under the hoppers of the trailers. By automatic it is meant that an operator merely actuates a control which in turn actuates a motor to do the work required such as lifting or forward and reverse movements. For example, a driver of a car merely actuates a gas pedal which in turn facilitates the flow of fuel to an engine so as to automate the driving process. Contrast this with a manual means of motion where a driver of a bicycle must utilize pedals to turn gears and a chain to set the tires of the bicycle in motion and move the bike forward. Accordingly, in a manual process no motor is utilized. Another example of automatic as used herein is an operator who actuates a lever which in turn ports hydraulic fluid driven by a motor. This is considered “automatic” as opposed to an operator of car who experiences a flat tire and utilizes a jack to lift the car. The jack may utilize a hydraulic cylinder but no motor is involved in the jacking process as the operator uses the strength and repetitive movements of his arm(s) to jack and hence such action is considered a manual means.
Manually lifting either a front end of a conveyer to reach a hopper of a truck is very troublesome particularly where fertilizer is being moved from the hopper to the conveyor. Locating a receiving end of the conveyor too low under the hopper means the fertilizer is likely to spill on the ground given the increased dispersion area with distance from the hopper. Lost product is costly especially with costly fertilizer. Still further, fertilizers do not evacuate hoppers when their exit gates are opened with any uniform consistency in either quantity or velocity. Indeed, the fertilizer may exit slowly until a rush of fertilizer exits, only to slow again, resulting in spurts of an on-again, off-again flow stream. Some conveyors provide a manual means to lift the front end to a desired height under the hopper to account for the amount of fertilizer that falls on the conveyor. These manual front end lifting/jacking means are simply not able to be utilized in any practical fashion out in the field where muddy conditions may exist and uneven terrain. Indeed, in such field conditions where such manual front end jacking means are employed, the front end of the conveyor sinks into the rich, loose and sometimes wet soil making it difficult, if not impossible, to raise and lower the front ends. Accordingly, these conveyors are limited to applications where transfer from the hoppers on the semi-trailers can only occur on paved surfaces.
Yet additional problems are found in known conveyors for use with items such as fertilizer. For example, as discussed above, because the rate and amount of fertilizer dispensed from hoppers is not uniform, the receiving portion of these conveyors does not allow for the variable flow onto the conveyor and is not able to control the amount of fertilizer that passes from the receiving end of the conveyor to a second, top, end of the conveyor vertically well above the receiving area. Because the amount of fertilizer is not well controlled, if at all, the fertilizer falls down the top to the bottom of the conveyor slowing the evolution of moving the fertilizer even further.